Why not political tag-wrestling?
IF YOU THINK things are getting rough between the ANC, the Youth League and the trade unions, just take a look at Bolivian politics. There the president, Evo Morales, has been caught on camera kneeing an opponent in the groin.
It happened during a "friendly" football match in which the president was part of a team playing against a side led by his political rival, Luis Revilla, mayor of La Paz.
Daniel Gustavo Cartagenam, once a Morales ally but no longer, made a particularly heavy tackle on the president. Morales got to his feet, approached Cartagenam pointing indignantly to his shin, then suddenly kneed him in the groin.
Cartagenam collapsed in agony, the incident captured on video and posted on YouTube. He was then arrested by one of the president's security guards, then released.
The match ended in a 4-4 draw, with four players red-carded, two from each side (but not including the president).
Politics is tough in Latin America. But it's interesting that political opponents should meet on the football field. Imagine if JZ, Julius Malema, Zwelinzima Vavi and the rest of them were to get into their togs and settle things over 90 minutes at Moses Mabhida.
It might actually be a short cut – eliminate those endless conference riggings, disciplinary hearings and strikes, not to mention the gales of name-calling and rhetoric.
The contest could even be refined and simplified into tag-wrestling between the different groups. Points of ideology could be settled by mulekicks and the Boston Crab. It would be a short cut to solutions; also a lot more entertaining.
Circus horror
TELEVISION footage has in recent days showed the ultimate circus horror - the lions turning on their trainer in the ring, mauling him badly. It happened in Lviv, in the Ukraine, and it was hectic – attendants turning fire hoses on the lions, the crowd screaming and one lion almost jumping over the net into the crowd.
I suppose the possibility of this happening – man losing his mastery over the ferocious beasts of the wild – is what has always given the lion-taming act its dread and fascination. But many today would be on the side of the lions, which belong in the wild and not as a cruel entertainment for humans.
I am among those. All the same, it was a horrifying incident and the trainer was lucky to escape alive. And I've a sneaking regard for lion tamers. I knew one – a first-rate fellow – who once took a break from his career to work in the advertising department of this newspaper company.
Sometimes he would take off his shirt to show us his scars. He worked with tigers as well as lions and his worst experience, he said, was in a rural dorp. Two of the tigers were a little otherwise and gave him a bit of a clawing.
Next morning he was at the local chemist to buy some muti to put on his scratches (not wearing his top hat and satins, of course) and he overheard the counter assistant enthusiastically telling a tannie about the circus show she'd seen last night.
"Dis fantasties! Jy moet gaan kyk! Die bloed! Die bloed!"
READER Cora Mulholland points out that in less than a fortnight we'll have an unusual date - 20.10.2010.
Quite so. I propose we all blow our vuvuzelas in unison!
Good boy!
HERE'S an American advertisement that gets to the point: "Free to good home. Excellent guard dog. Owner cannot afford to feed him anymore, as there are no more drug pushers, thieves, murderers, or molesters left in the neighbourhood for him to eat."
Limerick response
ANOTHER reader responds to Lydia Weight's request for completion of the limerick of which she can remember only the opening two lines:
A limerick is written with ease,
Like a man on a flying trapeze,
But a man must beware
Whilst up in the air
That the rope doesn't give his gonads a squeeze.
I fear that the fellows are not being entirely serious about this.
Tailpiece
A MAN goes to the doctor's. He has a frog growing out of the crown of his head.
Doctor: "What's happened here?"
Frog: "It started with a boil on my backside."
Last word
Television is more interesting than people. If it were not, we would have people standing in the corners of our rooms.
GRAHAM LINSCOTT
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